


Funeral Wreath

by Spencer_B



Series: One Shots [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Flower Language, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:37:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7825168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spencer_B/pseuds/Spencer_B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He loves him, he loves him. He loves him so much it hurts.<br/>It's killing him.<br/>The first petals are slow, like the first snowfall of winter. And like winter there is no avoiding the inevitable end.<br/>Kenma knows he's going to die. At least he can do it whilst being in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Funeral Wreath

 

Kenma guesses its fate when the first flowers he coughs up are yellow and red, as bright as the sun who’s captured his eyes and his heart. He’s never been fond of people, never needed someone else or really wanted them in his life. Kuroo, he only likes because he was forced to at first. The team he finds mostly pleasant but he wouldn’t call them his friends. In the beginning the petals are few, mixed with pieces of long stalk that scratch his throat and make him cough. They are easy enough the deal with. He collects the petals until he feels like he can almost form a whole flower. After a while he begins pressing the pieces in an old journal that he’d never used. They’re almost soothing to look at, the colours so bright and vivid, they remind him of Shouyou.

_(Coreopsis Arkansa: love at first sight)._

* * *

 

Kenma tells himself that the dark red ring around the inside of the flower doesn’t really look like blood. He’s lying.

* * *

 

There are days that Kenma lies in bed, after school and practice. Today is one such day. On these days he’s always exhausted, usually he just stares at the ceiling, not having the energy to do much else. In a few hours he’ll find the drive to play games, to move about, but for now he just doesn’t want to exist. It’s been nearly a fortnight since he met Shouyou and he’s lonely, so lonely all the time, even when he’s around other people. Even when he’s texting Shouyou. It comes as a surprise when he starts coughing.

The flower has changed, mostly green stalks and thin leaves. When he finally hacks up the flower itself, well, it’s small, almost fluffy (perhaps fuzzy would be a better word). And it’s yellow again.

The colour seems impossibly bright in his room.

Kenma can only stare at it for a few seconds before the coughing starts up again and suddenly it feels like hundreds of the little buds are spilling from his lips. He tries to catch them in his hands.

He wishes Shouyou was here, wishes that they weren’t so far apart. Wishes he hadn’t fallen in love.

_(Artemsia: absence)._

* * *

 

He wishes he hadn’t fallen in love with someone who didn’t love him back.

* * *

 

Kenma had been eight when he’d heard of Hanahaki disease, through the hushed whispers of adults who didn’t think he was listening. His cousin had fallen ill to it at fifteen, refused to get the flowers in her lungs removed. Refused to lose her love.

In his thoughts Kenma had called her stupid, surely there couldn’t be someone out there worth dying for.

Then he’d met Shouyou.

* * *

 

Kenma is on lunchbreak when he gets the text from Shouyou, it’s just stuff about his food, volleyball, Kageyama, nothing unusual but it makes Kenma’s heart clench with some strange tender feeling. He can’t stop the smile that creeps onto his face. Kuroo stares at him from the other side of the roof, asks who’s got him grinning like that.

When Kenma goes to reply the words get lost in a set of loud, broken coughs. Petals spill from his lips. Small and white and curling slightly inwards. Kenma coughs until he can only taste pear on his tongue, surrounded by the blossoms until they blow away in the cool breeze, off the edge of the rooftop.

It doesn’t stop until he coughs up one, full flower. It’s stained with something sticky and liquid and red.

Kuroo can only stare on in horror. Before he can speak Kenma flees.

_(Pear flower: affection)._

* * *

 

He doesn’t even care that it’s hurting him; not when Shouyou texts him like the sun, warming the flowers in his lungs.

* * *

 

It gets harder to breath, harder to play volleyball. Kuroo keeps trying to talk about it but Kenma dodges ever question, hides the flower petals in his hands when he has to. Training camp comes quickly and he’s so ready to see Shouyou.

He ignores the warnings of the pink and white flowers he wakes up surrounded by. Wonders instead what Shouyou would look like with those flowers in his hair, the same colour as his flushed cheeks.

Every time he thinks like that he coughs up one, perfect, red blossom. The colour makes it easier to hide the bloodstains.

_(Rosebay rhododendron: danger. Red carnations: devotion)._

* * *

 

His notebook gets thick and full with flower petals, green stems and leaves. The pages are smeared with blood and tears. It’s his most prized possession

* * *

 

Watching Shouyou jump is like watching a sunset, or a storm. Breath taking, beautiful, a force of nature. Kenma can’t take his eyes away. He knows Kuroo is watching him and mourning but there’s nothing Kenma can do. Even when he has to excuse himself because he can’t breathe without coughing any longer he still doesn’t want to leave Shouyou.

He knows, after all, that he doesn’t have much time. What he has is bittersweet.

For hours after practice is over for the day he finds himself spitting up a mixture of frilled, red petals and pale pink blossoms that fade into white. They have a yellow centre and the colour is painfully familiar. He associates it with Shouyou every time.

The red petals are soft beneath his fingers. This, and dark colouring makes him wonder if Shouyou’s lips would look and feel the same after he’d kissed him. Kenma always draws away from those thoughts though.

For some reason he doesn’t want to see Shouyou lose his innocence.

_(Dog rose: pleasure and pain. Red carnation: pure love)._

* * *

 

Kenma knows he is dying.

* * *

 

It is nearing the end of training camp when it happens. Kenma can’t even put a name on what he felt when he catches Shouyou and that setter (Kageyama, he knows his name is Kageyama Kenma just wants to be petty) wrapped around each other. They are both sweaty and flushed and neither notices him frozen in the doorway.

Well, it’s not like he lingers long. No matter how hard he tries he can’t get that image out of his head. Everything inside him feels broken, like the fuse has blown and he’s been thrown into darkness. Like all his sunlight has been blotted out.

Still, he can’t find it in himself to hate Shouyou, or the setter. At least Shouyou is happy.

He doesn’t go back to his dorms, only manages to stumble away from the gym towards the outer fields before he’s coughing, long, sharp bursts that make tears leak from his eyes and white spots dance across his vision. He can barely see the flowers beneath him but when he can he notices that they are thickly packed circles of orange as well as the odd full flower. It’s long and slender and yellow.

The colour looks sickly on the grey asphalt he is bent near, the field stretching out behind him.

_(Marigold: grief. Yellow tulip: hopeless love)_

* * *

 

When he stumbles home hours later he collapses on his doorstep. It can’t be long now. He begs his parents not to tell anyone, not to let anyone know. He just wants to die in peace. Kenma lies in bed and reads ever message he and Shouyou have ever exchanged. It’s the early hours of the morning when he sends ‘ _I love you’_.

* * *

 

Kenma can’t stop coughing. Red blossoms surround him; he can’t even tell if they should be that colour or if they’re just stained with blood. There are too many tears in his eyes to tell. He only knows he is coughing up blood because he can taste it on his tongue, it is thick and metallic and mixes with the smell of roses until he feels ill.

Even more ill.

He knew he’d never die quietly. For some reason that doesn’t upset him.

All he can do is cough; he doesn’t even notice the door opening or the people in his bedroom. He’d begged his parents to leave earlier. He would have begged again if he’d realise Kuroo and Shouyou were standing there. But he doesn’t notice, all he can do is heck away until he can’t breathe at all. There is a painful tightness in his chest and not matter how much he gasps he can’t get rid of it because his mouth is full of petals and sharp, barbed stalks, and blood.

_(Red roses: Love)._

* * *

 

Kenma coughs up a flower one last time before his heart ceases to beat.

* * *

 

The blossom is tiny and sky blue, the centre bright, sunshine yellow. It stands out among all the crimson, marred by not a single drop of blood. Two people rush to try and save Kenma but it’s too late. He doesn’t hear Kuroo crying or Shouyou begging him to come back. All that’s left are flowers. Bright and beautiful, filling every corner of the room. Flowers that tell a tale of one boy and his devotion, his silent but never ceasing care.

 One flower in particular screams from attention, a simple little blossom but its message seems to echo across the room.

A single Forget-Me-Not and nothing more.

_(True love. Don’t forget me)_

**Author's Note:**

> God I love flower symbolism. I wish I'd been able to get that through better here but I hope you guys like it anyway. Poor Kenma suffering so much.
> 
> Hit me up on my tumblr if you want to talk! kenmaboi.tumblr.com


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